AI Is a Black Box. Anthropic Figured Out a Way to Look Inside

AI Is a Black Box. Anthropic Figured Out a Way to Look Inside

Last year, the team began experimenting with a tiny model that uses only a single layer of neurons. (Sophisticated LLMs have dozens of layers.) The hope was that in the simplest possible setting they could discover patterns that designate features. They ran countless experiments with no success. “We tried a whole bunch of stuff, and … Read more

The US Is Forming a Global AI Safety Network With Key Allies

The US Is Forming a Global AI Safety Network With Key Allies

The US is widely seen as the global leader in artificial intelligence, thanks to companies like OpenAI, Google, and Meta. But the US government says it needs help from other nations to manage the risks posed by AI technology. At an international summit on AI Safety in Seoul on Tuesday, the US delivered a message … Read more

It’s Time to Believe the AI Hype

It’s Time to Believe the AI Hype

Folks, when dogs talk, we’re talking Biblical disruption. Do you think that future models will do worse on the law exams? If nothing else, this week proves that the rate of AI progress isn’t slowing at all. Just ask the people building these models. “A lot of things have happened—internet, mobile,” says Demis Hassabis, cofounder … Read more

Maven Is a New Social Network That Eliminates Followers—and Hopefully Stress

Maven Is a New Social Network That Eliminates Followers—and Hopefully Stress

“It’s really radical,” Stanley told me of Maven, “We got rid of likes and follows. That’s like insanity.” Some early adopters seem to be on board. “I quit all social media about three years ago because of the hostility, disinformation, brain rot, and advertising,” Benjamin Scott, a philosophy student, says. “A lot of this I believe … Read more

OpenAI’s Chief AI Wizard Ilya Sutskever Is Leaving the Company

OpenAI’s Chief AI Wizard Ilya Sutskever Is Leaving the Company

Ilya Sutskever, cofounder and chief scientist at OpenAI, has left the company. The former Google AI researcher was one of the four board members who voted to fire OpenAI CEO Sam Altman last November, triggering days of chaos that saw staff threaten to quit en masse and Altman ultimately restored. Altman confirmed Sutskever’s departure Tuesday … Read more

It’s the End of Google Search As We Know It

It’s the End of Google Search As We Know It

Google Search is about to fundamentally change—for better or worse. To align with Alphabet-owned Google’s grand vision of artificial intelligence, and prompted by competition from AI upstarts like ChatGPT, the company’s core product is getting reorganized, more personalized, and much more summarized by AI. At Google’s annual I/O developer conference in Mountain View, California, today, … Read more

Protesters Are Fighting to Stop AI, but They’re Split on How to Do It

Protesters Are Fighting to Stop AI, but They’re Split on How to Do It

Would it be too disruptive if protests staged sit-ins or chained themselves to the doors of AI developers, one member of the Discord asked. “Probably not. We do what we have to, in the end, for a future with humanity, while we still can.” Meindertsma had been worried about the consequences of AI after reading … Read more

OpenAI Is ‘Exploring’ How to Responsibly Generate AI Porn

OpenAI Is ‘Exploring’ How to Responsibly Generate AI Porn

OpenAI released draft documentation Wednesday laying out how it wants ChatGPT and its other AI technology to behave. Part of the lengthy Model Spec document discloses that the company is exploring a leap into porn and other explicit content. OpenAI’s usage policies curently prohibit sexually explicit or even suggestive materials, but a “commentary” note on … Read more

Google DeepMind’s Groundbreaking AI for Protein Structure Can Now Model DNA

Google DeepMind’s Groundbreaking AI for Protein Structure Can Now Model DNA

Google spent much of the past year hustling to build its Gemini chatbot to counter ChatGPT, pitching it as a multifunctional AI assistant that can help with work tasks or the digital chores of personal life. More quietly, the company has been working to enhance a more specialized artificial intelligence tool that is already a … Read more

Nick Bostrom Made the World Fear AI. Now He Asks: What if It Fixes Everything?

Nick Bostrom Made the World Fear AI. Now He Asks: What if It Fixes Everything?

Philosopher Nick Bostrom is surprisingly cheerful for someone who has spent so much time worrying about ways that humanity might destroy itself. In photographs he often looks deadly serious, perhaps appropriately haunted by the existential dangers roaming around his brain. When we talk over Zoom, he looks relaxed and is smiling. Bostrom has made it … Read more